SILICON VALLEY STAGE HAPPENINGS
SILICON VALLEY STAGE HAPPENINGS
BY Gerrye Wong April 6, 2024
Chinese-themed plays have hit the Bay Area stages this season which is a joy to see on the horizon. It gives great opportunities to local Asian actors whose opportunities for roles don’t come as readily as they should.
BERKELEY REP has brought a winner to its Bay Area stage with its New York Prize Finalist Lloyd Suh’s play THE FAR COUNTRY. This, I knew, could be a history lesson brought on stage, but it truly is more than that. Brought back for a triumphant West Coast premiere, the play tells the poignant story of Moon Gyet’s arrival to San Francisco Bay’s Angel Island in the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act. His dream of coming to America for a new life is put on hold for a torturous 17 months of interrogations amidst feelings of hopelessness he shares with many other Chinese held there through the immigration station’s discriminative practices. Playwright Lloyd Suh told in the program’s interview that he wanted viewers not only to learn about this sad part of history, but to come away with some thoughts of their own family’s history and their hopes for his and future generation’s better lives. The night I went, the almost full week night audience was primarily Caucasian seniors which made me ponder whether this might be their first glimpse of this sometimes unknown sad piece of Chinese immigration history of Angel Island Immigration Station’s duration between1910 and1940. If so, it was a well done piece to perhaps pique their interest to explore and learn more about this often overlooked piece of history.
The story itself is spell binding itself, but it is the wonderful cast that made the play come alive. When an audience member like myself can feel the pain and hopelessness of imprisoned Moon Gyet played so vividly, as well as feel a true hatred of John Keabler’s Inspector, you know the actors have made their characters come alive. Tess Lina as the self sacrificing mother left behind in China and Sharon Shao as the adventurous young girl brought back to America as a wife add sorrow and comic moments to this story.
The Berkeley Rep’s Peet Theatre stage is surrounded on three sides by the audience with most patrons looking down upon the actor’s movements and I have to bring raves to Erika Chong Shuch who choreographed the Angel Island interrogation scenes movements so skillfully among the crowd of actors telling of the life in the immigration station. Wilson Chin’s scenic design carried through the story line perfectly and the total production was without a doubt, one of the finest to grace a Bay Area stage. I highly recommend this Jennifer Chang’s directed West Coast premiere production to everyone and anyone who will recognize a prize of a play enhanced by a superb cast. Running until April14, this is one definitely not to miss.
Ticket purchases: https://www.berkeleyrep.org/shows/the-far-country/
THEATREWORKS OPENS TIGER STYLE APRIL 9
Excitement will come to Mountain View with the opening of the hilarious East-meets-West comedy TIGER STYLE! I look forward to welcoming Francis Jue. Long a favorite of TheatreWorks productions through the years, he will portray dad, as well as other roles including Tzi Chuan, Melvin and General Tso. I will join a full house opening night audience to see this play which is said to be a razor-sharp satire examining the cause and effects of strict “tiger” parenting as 30-something Ivy League graduate siblings Albert and Jennifer wallow in their adult dissatisfactions with life despite their childhood ultra-achievements. Of course when their lives fall apart, they blame their parents and run away from California to China on an “Asian Freedom Tour” where obviously calamity ensues.
Popular actors Francis and Emily Kuroda return to the TheatreWorks stage as the siblings parents, joined by Jenny Nguyen Nelson, Will Dai and Jeremy Kahn. Written by Guggenheim Fellow Mike Lew, news reports have called this work “a cultural mixmaster of laughs, attitude and insight. Quoting the San Diego Union-Tribune, “Lew’s bursting-with-imagination comedy works up its own restless, breathless sense of investigation, as it takes on thorny topics of prejudice and cultural expectations”. Well known to Bay Ara audiences, Director Jeffrey Lo, a Filipino-American playwright and director based in the Bay Area, and recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artist Award, should be commended for he assembled this crackerjack cast to bring this story to life.
For an evening of Chinese American cultural spoof, perhaps, plan to see TIGER STYLE at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts before April 28, 2024 closing. I’ll bet this witty comedy will resonate with any parents out there who ever tried to help their child as well as to any child who has ever blamed their parents for anything and everything . For information visit Theatreworks.org or call 877 662 8978
THE CHINESE LADY COMES TO MOUNTAIN VIEW
Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s Life, THE CHINESE LADY is a poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese girl. She is only 14 years old when she’s kidnapped and brought to the United states from Guangzhou Province in 1834. It has been said she was the first Chinese woman to set foot on US soil. To the American public, she was an oddity so she was put on display as the Chinese Lady. Unbelievably for the next half-century she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the showing would be how she walks on bound feet in miniature shoes.
Playing at the hidden gem of Mountain View, The Pear Theatre, it will run from April 20-May 12. Director Wynne Chan said of the play, “I’m thrilled to direct and share this unique piece of Chinese American history with our Pear audiences. I grew up in San Francisco, a city with a rich Chinese American history and yet I didn’t know about this history until I was an adult. Hopefully this show sheds light on some of the first immigrants that came to this country and while the events in this play begin 200 years ago, many of the themes still resonate today.
Obviously this is a lonely life for the young girl, who eventually decides she cannot be called an Asian curiosity for the rest of her life even though this is all she ever knew during her life in America. Ironically this play was one of the early ones in Lloyd Suh’s arsenal of works, but he likes to weave in history among his play themes, it seems. For ticket info: thepear.vbotickets.com/events or call 650 254 1148 of email info@thepear.org. The Pear Theatre is at 1110 La Avenida . Check dates of The Chinese Lady performances.
